Does a child go missing in the United States every forty seconds?

The problem of missing children is complex and multifaceted. There are different types of missing children including family abductions; endangered runaways; non-family abductions; and lost, injured, or otherwise missing children. When the public hears of a missing child case, it is generally involving one of the estimated 115 child victims of the most serious, long-term non-family abduction called “stereotypical kidnappings”.

The best national estimates for the number of missing children are from incidence studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. To date two such studies have been completed.

The first National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART-1) was released in 1990, and the second, known as NISMART-2, was released in October 2002. According to NISMART-2 research, which studied the year 1999, an estimated 797,500 children were reported missing; 58,200 children were abducted by nonfamily members; 115 children were the victims of the most serious, long-term nonfamily abductions called “stereotypical kidnappings”; and 203,900 children were the victims of family abductions.